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I wanted it to break away rather than cause damage to the Smart, so it was pretty light and only held in place by two belly panel screws. Two six inch 3/8-inch dia springs were attached to openings near the lights to short rods protruding from the top of the air dam to hold it in place under tension. If it encountered an object, it would pivot on short brackets, rotating slightly down and rearwards, and it would fold upwards in the center. The springs would wrap downwards and loose their pull and the dam would remain horizontal until you pulled it back, then it would snap into place. It survived several previous thrown caps before it broke free, and when it did, it just sheared the heads off the mounting screws and straightened out the spring hooks, taking them with it. Like it was never there. I really liked it. But the scraping was pretty irritating. The wheelbase of the Smart is so short that when you hit the brakes, the dam would scrape. The amazing thing was that after a LOT of scraping there was absolutely no loss of plastic at the base of the dam. It was just noise. It made pedestrians drop things.
I've decided you can't do an air dam on a Smart without adjustable air shocks. Oh, and I'm going to drop it a couple inches by modding the springs when I get them.
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Ptero
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